For this episode I had the always sunny company of Aja Smith, whose an anthropologist working on leadership training, spirituality in Denmark and even the practices of anthropologists themselves, and how they come to embody academia. We talk about her work and about catching yourself and your words as you venture into the business of writing about people and relations. 

Denne episode er særlig, da den er på dansk. Jeg har selvskab af Docent Emeritus Ole Høiris, som i løbet af sin lange karriere har været vidt omkring, og har skrevet flere bøger om antropologi, fagests idéhistorie og flere af fagets grundbegreber. Han har også skrevet tænkepausen Mennesket. Vi taler om fagets begyndelse, nye bogprojekter og antropologiens rolle i samfundet. 

In this episode I walk with professor Lotte Meinert, who has worked in Uganda for many years on all kinds of post-conflict issues. Now she is writing a book on the mountainous land of northern Uganda and the people that live there. We discuss ownership not only to land but also to the knowledge we produce and the potentials of sharing and collaborating.

Welcome back to our not so fast nutritious podcast series. For this second season we begin with the anthropologists from the first. This episode is a conversation between them and your hosts Kaila Bolton and Katrine Pahuus on the future of anthropology and the discipline's role within academia and society.

In this episode we are joined by Professor of Anthropology, Cheryl Mattingley, at the University of Southern California. Mattingley is a renowned scholar in the fields of medical anthropology and anthropology of morality and ethics among others, and since 1992 she has been travelling to Aarhus University to participate in several research projects and collaboration. In this talk, Cheryl takes us through her path to anthropology, her use of philosophy and her aspirations for the discipline of anthropology in the future.

Marie Rask Bjerre Odgaard is Ph.d.-student at the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture and Society, at Aarhus University. In this episode, Marie gives us the opportunity to reflect upon the field of ethics as norm-critique, and as a space for queering academic representation. Marie introduces us to a notion of ethics as dwelling within the uncertainties and paradoxes that we come across in the field, and in the writing process, as anthropologists. Marie considers an anthropology of ethics as a toolbox for doing just that: making space for dwelling in the strangeness of norms, including our own as scholars.

Rasmus Dyring is Associate Professor at the Department of Philosophy and History of Ideas, at Aarhus University. In this episode, Rasmus reflects upon ethics as a critical possibility for breaking down disciplinary boundaries, and as a necessary critique of traditional philosophical categories and methodologies. Epistemologically, Rasmus considers ethics to be a phenomenal field of interruption, opening up for other core questions on human experience such as health and illness, and he introduces us to an understanding of ethics as world-openness, and argues for a concept of world-open care in addition to person-centered care dominating much dementia care work.

Maria Elizabeth Louw is Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture and Society, at Aarhus University. In this episode, Maria gives us the possibility to reflect upon how we can understand ontological others, like a breadcrum, as part of peoples webs of ethical co-existence. Maria introduces us to an understanding of ethics as something that is, and perhaps remains, a riddle for our interlocutors themselves, and how working with these perplexities is part of the project of the researcher on ethics. In Marias field, working with elderly people in Kyrgyzstan, ethics manifests itself as a sense or impulse, not quite graspable and not quite embedded within the individual, problematizing ethics as well defined virtues and individual cultivation.

Anders Sybrandt Hansen is Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture and Society, at Aarhus University. In this episode, Anders reflects upon the discussions between Dark Anthropology and Anthropology of the Good, and how an Anthropology of Ethics emerged as a response. Anders also introduces us to a notion of ethics as at once interpersonal and risky, demanding the recognition of the freedom of the Other. In this conversation, we are also introduced to his own field where normative notions of ethics are disturbed by moral economy, and his examination of the links between trust and control in contemporary China.

Maria Elizabeth Louw is Associate Professor at the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture and Society, at Aarhus University. In this episode, Maria introduces the Center for the Study of Ethics and Community, ponders upon different ways of approaching and thinking about ethics as both an ontological and relational experience, but also as a field of inquiry within Anthropology. Further, Maria gives us an introduction to her own fields where she reflects upon other-wordly presence in the lives of elderly people in Kyrgyzstan, and how an Anthropology of Ethics can illuminate why people engage in religious experience, specifically Islam.

How can public anthropology be pursued? What are the potentials of crossing disciplinary boundaries? And how can the exhibition, as a method, be used for such purposes?

Jason De León is Professor of Anthropology and Chicana/o Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles. In his work, Jason draws upon ethnographic methods, archaelogy and forensic science, in order to approach the field of Latin American migration. Jason brings us upon a road not so often trodden, reflecting upon the relationship between academia and activism, hierarchial and disciplinary boundaries, and doing mobile exhibition work as an avenue for making the project Hostile Terrain 94 public and democratic.

What happens when the state of being in a crisis becomes the norm? What can be learned from the cascade of crisis after crisis in Argentina in the late 20th and early 21st century?

We talk to Sarah Muir about her recently published book Routine Crisis, her personal experience of a journey in the discipline of anthropology, and about the role of anthropology in both the present day world and looking forward into the future.

Even though she doesn't consider herself an anthropologist, in this episode professor at The New School of Social Research in New York, Shannon Mattern, offers invaluable insights into the role of ethnography and the many ways to complement ethnographic work. She also inspires us to engage with our increasingly mediated existence in new and creative ways, exploring the possibilities of digital ethnography. Furthermore, she talks about the inspiration for her new, longer term project about arboreal agents - taking the methods and thinking from digital media and smart cities to the roots.

How do we shift research fields, engage in a more creative writing, and dare to be adequate?

Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of Amsterdam, Tina Harris, ponders upon these and many more reflections for us. She brings us upon the road of her career with all it entails of shifts, ethics and methodologies, navigating in a competetive academic environment, and trying to stimulate a supportive peer-culture in the work space.

How do we attend to difference, collaborates across distances, and disseminate not only to colleagues but to a broader public?

Professor of Anthropology of the Body at University of Amsterdam, Annemarie Mol answers these and many more questions for us.  She tells her journey through different disciplines and scholarly traditions and she presents her vision for anthropology in the future.

In this last episode, I take a stroll with Pierre Du Plessis, whose a Post doc with Aarhus University and co-hosted by the University of Cape Town. Before he continues his carrier at Oslo University, we get a chance to hear about his research and his perspectives on Danish sociality and how we might pay attention to our traces in the world of a life entangled with non-human beings.

Nanna is an assistant professor at the Department of Anthropology, AU. With a healthy portion of humor, I followed the local around her neighbourhood in Hjorthøj. We talked about Nanna's way into anthropology, how she fell in love with it and her current research projects on loneliness and gender futures. Nanna also talks to us about her studies of social change and how we as anthropologists might benefit from a bit of silliness.

Anne Line Dalsgård, or just Line, is an associate professor at the Department of Anthropology, AU. Besides being an amazing anthropologist, she is also a trained actor. As Line and I circled around the lake at the Aarhus University park, we talked about her background in acting, her relationship to friends in Brazil and how anthropologists might use their body and emotions as well as their intellect in their writing. She also gives us a little piece of advice on how to stay grounded.

Cameron is an associate professor at the Department of Anthropology, AU. He is incidentally also a cherished member of the COMMUNITAS board. In this episode, Cameron and I walk through Marselisborg Park and talk about Cameron's professional carrier, his view on Danes as well as his recent work on the Buddhist concept of impermanence. He also leaves us with a bit of advice for what to take from the current crises around the corona pandemic.